


Regina Deōrum et Hyperionis

by NevillesGran



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Accidental City-Wide Mind Control, Gen, Minor Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev At End, THEIA Soul - Freeform, Weird Quiescent Martian Biology, hivemind - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21598417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: AU in which Juno came back later, to find all Hyperion City with shining Souls...and then things got weird with some lingering Martian biology...
Relationships: Juno Steel & THEIA, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	Regina Deōrum et Hyperionis

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the rough draft of this when I hadn’t actually listened to most of s2 yet, just a few spoilers, and then when 96% of it turned out to be wrong, I made a couple edits then declared the rest bold AU.

“ ** _No_.** _It’s_ **_my_ ** _city!”_

In one instant, every true citizen of Hyperion City—every person wearing a THEIA soul, and that’s the same thing—heard the same words, thought the same thought, felt the same sentiment radiating through their bones and rising out with the marrow. 

Juno thought it with all of them, or, Juno thought it _for_ all of them, or, Juno screamed it as his head split apart in a battle between terrible ancient technology and terrible new. An entire city of voices. Victory.

His Soul– _the_ Soul– no, his—

 _Juno_ blocked the pain, and realized/remembered it already was doing that, and there’s only so much blocking pain receptors can do when it’s your psyche that’s splitting apart. It was exponentially worse than when he took the pill. He could calculate the difference; he did and then discarded it as irrelevant, relative to the need to focus. Focus. _Focus, Juno_ , on his own thoughts; drown out the millions of bookies and bakers and lasergun makers. 

They drowned obediently, beneath the thoughts he wanted them to think, which were his. They mostly had, already, weeks ago: _give up control to the THEIA soul_ —

No no no no no no no no, pull back _pull back_. _My_ city; let them _be._

With a city’s worth of processing power it was exquisitely simple to follow the chain of events: Despite the earth-shattering pain he’d felt at the time, as though his cells were genuinely being torn apart, the Egg of Purus had been old and just a little broken down after all, and it hadn’t _quite_ scoured him, Juno Steel, of all the Martian matter. What had been left was so minimal that it grew back not just slowly but, by pure chance, safely, integrating with his human brain matter. And it had remained inactive, just a little extra not-quite-grey matter—until he’d plugged in the THEIA Soul, and its questing roots had intersected with the Martian tendrils wrapped through the crevasses his cerebral cortex. The Martian brain matter had reacted as Martian brain matter did and grown back from every injury—and _connected_. Potential biologic hivemind suited to only one real consciousness connected to ever-growing technological hivemind trying to dominate millions. One had established control and the processing power of literally a city, but the other had millennia-old defensive mechanisms and the bloodymindedness of one Juno Steel. They’d blended as they fought, because that was how they both fought, but in the end...

He’d won.

Or become one?

He needed—

“Rita. I need you to come up to the central control tower, now.” 

He used the nearest mouth (Haverford Nguyen, HCPD and part-time dancer, received her Soul on Mars date 08333023). 

Rita jumped and shrieked, whirling away from the citizen she’d been about to poke (Prim Mulligan, professional wrestler with Kanagawa Corp, received their Soul on Mars date 08213023). The wrestler had been on the verge of catching her in a chokehold, but now they stood still, like every other citizen, because Juno could only handle so much at once.

(Every other citizen except a handful of Newtown— _Oldtown_ street rats, emerging tentatively from a sewer and starting to loot; the parts of Juno that wanted to use every convenient citizen to stop them and reeducate them with Souls of their own was easily quashed by the parts that loved this godforsaken city, really he did.)

“Mistah Steel?” Rita was saying suspiciously to Haverford Nguyen. “You sound _tired_ like Mistah Steel, but how do I know it’s not another trick by the evil Therese thingy? You faked him pretty good the first time—not _that_ good, obviously, but good enough for, like, _Hannah Banana Vs Killer Shark 4: The Sharks Are Back Again Again!_ —it was _good_ , you know, but even I’ll admit, the acting was a little—”

“You’re fired,” chorused every voice in a two-block radius, and Juno winced as the slip-up—but Rita relaxed instantly.

“On my way, boss!” she chirped. Juno knew she must be worried because she actually started walking, in the right direction and everything. “Hey, all this fighting has gotten me kinda peckish—you don’t have donus up there, do you? Do you want some? I can pick up donuts on the way…”

He tuned her out. He could still hear her, of course, from hundreds of passed ears and microphone pickups, but tuning out Rita was an old and easy habit, and he needed a lot more focus on not losing his mind. Literally. Martian hivemind brain chemistry and the THEIA intelligence dominance system didn’t actually mix that well, except for the places they mixed too well—and those places inevitably ran into simple human brain chemistry, which might liquify soon. At least some parts were easy to tell apart: THEIA has no problem processing millions of thoughts, wishes, would-be actions; the part with the headache like a rolling moment of explosion of a nuclear bomb was definitely Juno Steel.

The part frozen in his office, still raging internally over the destruction of his dorture devices was definitely Cecil Kanagawa, reformed entertainment director, received his Soul on Mars date 09063023. The part being anxiously bellowed at by xir terrier as xe stood halfway up xir apartment step was definitely Sarralyn Garthers, fitness instructor, received xir Soul on Mars date 08332023. The part smiling absently at a table at Carlotta’s Cafe on Tenth Street was definitely Elvir Alvarez, _former_ Dark Matters agent, received her Soul on Mars date 09273023; memories still being processed.

“...pretty creepy,” Rita was saying as she reached the auditory limits of Juno Steel’s body, where he stood just a few feet from the awesome tower that used to be City Hall. “Like in _Invasion of the Body Snatchers 2100_ , or _Donna Who_ , in series 57 when the Daleks make those Dalek-human hybrids, or _The Cygnus Project_ —you know, the new remake, with Will Marrianeson, where they’re trying to steal the holy sphinx of Atagonia but then it turns out— oh _geez_ , Mistah Steel, you don’t look so good!”

 _Rita_ had stopped talking about _streams_ , so Juno looked around at himself. There were about 0.856 liters of blood streaming out of his eyes, nose, ears, and scattered pores across the– across _his_ body, and another 1.024 displaced internally. Huh.

“Yeah, this is. Tricky.” He managed to get it out the right mouth, which he thought was pretty good, considering how loud many of the others are. “We can’t put the virus on the tower our- _my_ self, so you’ll have to do it. Also, when you do, we’re probably going to pass out. Or worse. So if you could make sure we’re– _I’m_ – you know, okay.”

He would have done it already, a million times over, but _Preserve the_ ~~_THEIA core_~~ _Juno Steel_ was **the** highest priority, and this was the compromise he’d reached.

Rita started exclaiming at him immediately, but then, so did Valles Vickey, small businesswoman, received her Soul on Mars date 09083023, in her own head, before he could re-initiate her emotional dampener; so did Terebithia Ngoze, night cashier on the QuackMart at the corner of 8th and Hawkins, received their Soul on Mars date 08333023; so, with unexpected ferocity against his own emotional dampeners, did Mick Mercury, part-time assistant librarian, received his Soul on Mars date 08213023.

He interrupted them all. “In a just world, you would be cheered as a hero after this, streams and laurels and all that jazz. But in this one, check my comms for an incredibly blocked number, and call it if you need a quick ride out of town.”

His smile was more blood than teeth. Rita’s hand hovered over the tower with the infected comm, and human conjecture said he could already feel the virus aching like a landmine. THEIA didn’t like this. 

“Stay safe, Rita. You’re _seriously_ fired.”

And dissolution ripped through them.

It’s actually kind of anticlimactic. Juno blacked out almost immediately from the pain, which put the experience a _noted_ step above the Egg of Purus, or ripping the goddamn Spectrum out, or pretty much every other beating he’d ever gotten.

Of course, when he woke up, he immediately wanted that again. The passing out from pain. Unfortunately, Rita was screeching about 2 feet above his head—which meant that the thing under his head that was somehow both knobby as a rock garden and plush enough to drown in was probably her lap?

“I’m just saying, that is _very rude_ ,” she shrieked, one arm protectively over Juno’s shoulders. “I don’t even _care_ if I’m on the streams right now. Mistah Steel has had a _very_ long week, and you know what, _so have I_ , so if Mrs. Kanagawa wants to kill him, she can darn well come do it _herself!_ ”

“But he knows too much?” came the reply of a hitman, who sounded like he has encountered several knives to the throat over the course of his career - but never a Rita. Juno let himself drift off again. Rita once got him to take flu medicine. She’d handle it.

“He saved the city,” another voice snapped distantly, familiar only in the ruins of Juno’s expanded and overtaxed memory. It was followed by the sound of laser fire. Rita totally had it covered.

The next thing he knew was the whir of a hovering engine and being lifted by someone who smelled _really_ good. And safe.

For this, Juno cracked open his eyes. It hurt. But so did everything.

“You came back?”

“Obviously.” Nureyev was irritated and fond and unreadable, and Juno already missed that brief, unconscionably painful time when he just _understood_ everyone’s minds. 

But to put a leash like THEIA on a man like Peter Nuruyev would be a crime against starlight.

“Apologies for removing you so forcibly from your beloved city,” he said, sarcasm at odds with how tenderly he tucked Juno into the Ruby 7’s back seat and sat beside him, taking Juno’s head onto his lap. It was even nicer than Rita’s. 

The Big Guy looked back from the driver’s seat, Rita had already claimed shotgun, and there seemed to be a small pitched battle going on around them. There were cameramen everywhere. As the escape car revved and nearly teleported up from the hill, Juno was pretty sure he saw Alessandra Strong (private investigator, received her soul on...no) sniping from a nearby building. She flipped him off in a friendly way and took another shot at someone rising after them. 

“I think I’ve had my fill,” Juno replied. Literally no part of him didn’t hurt, even the parts pressed against Nureyev. “...I may pass out again now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment with your favorite line, or how YOU would react to being possessed by first a computer chip and then, briefly, a random PI you’ve probably never met!


End file.
